Foo Forum

The USER who clicks on Google's result is being deceived - instead of seeing page with relevant data he will see login page. I feel seriously pissed off when I click on some links in Google news only to be greeted with subscriber's only page - it may be acceptable for Google news since they have trusted feeds, but its not for Google search engien.

eg: if you have an ip that has been banned and you are running as a bot name - that's why...

Actual ip parsing is left as an excersize to the reader:

#####################
#!/usr/bin/perl

#use CGI::Carp qw (fatalsToBrowser);

print "Content-type: text/plain\n\n"; # if needed...

$ip = $ENV{'REMOTE_ADDR'};
$hta= ".htaccess";

&GetHtaccess;
# print "s $success $ip" if $debug;
&BurnIP($ip);
&PutHtaccess;

sub BurnIP {
$z=shift;
foreach $t (@htaccess) {
if ($t =~ /deny from/gi &&!$done) {
$t.=" $z";
$done++;
push(@out,$t);
}
else {
push(@out,$t);
}
}
if (!$done) {
push(@out,qq¦\ndeny from $z\n¦);
}
undef @htaccess;
@htaccess=@out;
undef @out;
}

sub PutHtaccess {
open(FILE2,">$hta");
foreach $t (@htaccess) {
print FILE2 "$t\n";

}
close(FILE2);
}

sub GetHtaccess {
return(0) if!-e "$hta";
open(FILE3,"$hta");
@htaccess =<FILE3>;
chomp @htaccess;
close(FILE3);
1;
}

If not logged in :-
1) Disable all outward links from every page.
2) If cookies are enabled, insert a login form at the top of the page, otherwise insert a "cookies required" message at the top of the page.

By disabling all the outward links, robots would be totally screwed. By displaying the indexed content (albeit with a login form at the top of the page) those that enter the site directly from a search engine will not be overly annoyed/disappointed.

I wouldn't mind if you've to move it to another location to make this happen ;)

I don't know anything about the workings of this site but I presume it's driven by some sort of database, could not a search function be written for it?

You would disable links if not logged in (thereby defeating unwanted robots) but enable the links if logged in and/or on a white-listed IP address. Thus, Googlebot et al could be allowed in.

This is still cloaking, but the user would see the same content as indicated by the search, however links would be disabled and a login form would be displayed at the top of the page.

To disable links, simply set href="#" (to go to top of page I think). You could also use javascript to focus the first item on the form.

Is this something that will be implemented in the near future?

another thing; I mentionned PunBB as being a very light and efficient BB system, I forgot to mention the best system: MesDiscussions. I have no other words, it simply is the best. Only thing is, I'm not sure they have support in English (it's a French system).

Plus it can be "taken down" too easily for most usages ..France has some of the best coders in the world ..they did not work on "MesDiscussions"

support is french only ..24 hour delay except holidays ..France has lots of holidays ..form mail problem submit system..

I was not aware TF1 did use this system at any stage.

MesDiscussions is used for some of the largest online communities, including hardware.fr (about 350,000 members and not far from 30 million messages).
The "smiley" thing is not an issue, it can be deactivated. The support however can become an issue.

1) Use entirely cgi links.
2) Unless logged in or on an IP address white-list, all links will lead to a login page.
3) The login page must include a noindex robots meta (to avoid duplicate content penalty!)

This is based on assumption of knowing all IPs of given search engines - this perhaps will work now, but with explosion of spam sites it seems to me that using cloaking is exposing yourself to a serious penalty.

effisk, those french forums, I was going to post a code sample from their page that certainly does nothing to support your claim that they are the best, but leosghost already covered the question.

Brett, how about selling your blacklists? If you have every bad bot in the Delta Quadrant coming at you I would think it would be a trustworthy and effective blacklist that you could make a profit out of (and of course make operations a bit cheaper). I *LOVE* access logs and will probably always love them, I'm sure there are plenty of others who spend countless hours tracking like I do. Maybe you could hire someone to cover the work for you (unless you do like dealing with the issue though probably not)...either way sell the lists and make a profit and buy some new super servers or something? ;)

WW is rarely the one to break a story. Usually stuff is posted on the front page days and weeks after the rest of the web gets it (i've noticed there are peaks and troughs of spurts and dryness concerning stories posted). So basically you come to read the valuable comments posted by members. That will continue.

But searching for other people who have started threads on a topic I am interested in will now, unfortunately, have to happen elsewhere (and sorry, I don't prefer to use MSN search...and the web is about choices - you can't choose for me.)